THE BALLET

Evening Star, Issue 22627, 20 April 1937, Page 14

THE BALLET

HOW IT EXPRESSES ITSELF RUSSIANS PRE-EMINENT IN ANCIENT ART " YES, BUT WHAT IS BALLET ? ” In view of the fact that Dunedin is to . see the Monte Carlo Russian Ballet, no doubt the question is often asked, particularly among younger people in a country which, properly, speaking, has never seen ballet, although it has seen two of the greatest ballerinas in, Anna Pavlova and Genee. It is a difficult' question to answer satisfactorily to those who have not seen ballet, but one devotee .has described it as “ rhythm, movement, grace, the blending of the arts of music, painting, and the theatre all in one.” And another says: “It is a ■ communication between dancer, choneographer (designer), composer, and painter, on the one hand, and the author on the other, of an emotional state. Words fail. Ballet, intelligently conceived and presented, never Tails.” John Van Druten, the playwright, in a foreword to Irving Deakin’s ‘ To the Ballet,’ has described how in 1919 quite by accident he went to see the Diaghileff Russian Ballet in London. He went unwillingly and prejudiced. “As for ballet, I knew all about that from the fantastic hodge-podge, like a mixture of vaudeville burlesoue and musical comedy, that is the English pantomime. ■ In these entertainments, to which I was taken every Christmas, there is always the dragonfly ballet, the butterfly ballet, the porcelain ballet, or the dance in the Cave of Jewels, in which lumpy, and not very young women dressed in tights, with spangled wings, perform ungraceful, meaningless, and conventional measures; or, attired as Watteau shepherdesses, go clumsily through the movements of a formal minuet to the intense boredom of the children who are waiting for the next appearance of the funny man. I was convinced that all ballet must be like that, a little better technically, perhaps, but just as uninteresting.” But afterwards: “ There is no way of describing good ballet to those who have seen only bad; ‘yes,’ one,must say if one is pressed, they do, pirouette 1 and jump and dance on’their toes, and do all the things that you say bore you, but they do them beautifully, they do them with meaning.” Ballet became; something to which - he would rather, go than to any other form of entertainment. ' IN THE RENAISSANCE. It needs no historian’s knowledge to, know that humankind has ever inter-' preted its feelings in the dance. It languished, but in the Renaissance,’ it was reborn as the ballet. A musician was commissioned to compose the scene, a ballet master to arrange the steps,, a poet to write the verses, a painter to devise the decors. This splendid entertainment was imported into France, where under three kings, hut especially in the smiles of ‘ Le Roi Soleil,” Louis'XlV., it found its home. With the Revolution its devotees fled across Europe, eventually settling at St. Petersburg, in the patronage of the Tsars. There was developed the Imperial Russian Ballet, and for a long time the history of the ballet was the history of the ballet in Russia. Five years before the Great War France and England were awakened,, or reawakened, to appreciation of the ballet by, a Russian company under Sergei Diaghileff,' to whom and to Michael. Fokine the modern ballet owes its being. The company was dispersed;by the war,' but it was reassembled, and an American tour was arranged- in 1916. About this time there was developed under Diaghileff Leonide Massine, who has' composed a series of the most important ballets of this time, including ‘Le Beau Danube.’ Diaghileff died in 1929 and Anna Pavlova in 1931, and there were fears for the future of ballet, but in 1931 there was formed the Monte Carlo Ballet Russe, under the general direction of Colonel Wassily de Basil. THE DON COSSACK’S VICTORY. Born in the Caucasus, de Basil excelled at the . soldiers’ lezghinka and other dances of his native mountains. He starred Chaliapin in the Russian Opera Company just after the war, then stepped from opera to, ballet. He revitalised the latter medium by his conception of, a company of veterans teaching children the art and presenting the ancient ballet productions as they taught. One year’s utter, non-suc-cess, heart-breaking in its intensity, attended his efforts until he went to London in 1933 for a three weeks’ season—and stayed five months. Now he makes his headquarters in Monte Carlo, giving a yearly season at Covent Garden. He has made an, American tour which netted the organisation just 1,000,000 dollars, and has another in progress at the moment. Last year he formed two companies, equally dividing his talent, and sent one company to cultivate new ground' in Australia and New Zealand. Twenty-four ballets were presented in Australian capitals over a period of four months. A New Zealand tour was uncertain till the last moment. “ BALLETOMANIA.” The past, so far as New Zealand is concerned, has known the Danish dancer, Adeline Genee, of pre-war days, and the immortal Anna Pavlova. But these were stars of their own companies, which would bear little resemblance to the of de Basil. A number of experienced dancers head his company, but the majority of its members are a chosen team from his “ babies ” of 1932. When he took over the company he placed a number of 13-year-old students from Paris with the dancers of Diaghileff’s Monte Carlo Company, from whose names the ballet stars of the future will arise. Pavlova gave the world a new word —“ balletomania.” Its victims are “ balletomanes,” lovers of ballet who follow their favourite ballerina from city to city and country to country. Voltaire was the earliest recorded, and such great nineteenth century artists as the Italian Taglioni had their perennial following. Pavlova’s admirers are legion, and the present revival of Russian ballet is finding the same circumstances. , No longer are the balletomanes princes and noblemen in silk hats and magnificent estate. They are earnest students, writers perhaps, men and women of moderate means and inconspicuous clothes. There have been one or two with the company which is to dance in Dunedin—modern pilgrims on the trail of art.